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Every grassroots activist group needs to raise a little funding and do a lot of outreach. For the LA County RLC, we will accomplish both with a brand new printing of “The Law” by Frederic Bastiat with a special foreword from our chapter.

Buy it online or come to one of our meetings! Our asking price is $5 to cover the costs of printing. If you believe in the potential of this project and want to see more like it, please chip in a little more.

Never heard of The Law? Ron Paul said it should be the first book people read “to really wake them up to what the law ought to be.”

We’re confident people will share this book with friends and family, introducing them to the principles of liberty and the activists who fight for them.

2 events coming up July 8 and July 12

We aim for a record attendance at our next meeting, Sunday, July 12. After growing our membership in Burbank, South LA, Chinatown, Culver City, West Hollywood, and Pico-Union, we’re more than ready to venture to the people’s republic. Please be a part of this important event:
2:00pm Sunday July 12
Cross Campus: 929 Colorado Ave, Santa Monica 90401Facebook RSVP (Please Share).

Email LACountyRLC@gmail.com to suggest a specific agenda item. Major updates will include the upcoming RLCCA convention in Anaheim, our new opportunities for growth, and more.

Also, lacRLC chairman Nick Hankoff is the guest speaker at the July Meeting of the Libertarian Party chapter in Pasadena on July 8. Bring voter registration forms to poke them in the ribs with. No, but seriously folks, this is a great group and after the business of their club, there will be a fun discussion about immigration. 7:00pm, Wednesday, July 8
Panera Bread: 3521 E Foothill Blvd, Pasadena, 91107Facebook RSVP

How far will you go for liberty?

Santa Monica is all we ask.

Happy 198th birthday to Henry David Thoreau! July 12 is as good an occasion as any to celebrate the American tradition in civil disobedience. And of course we won’t rule out politics. Are they diametrically opposed? Mutually exclusive? Or can they work hand in hand to roll back the state and expand liberty?

PLUS we’ll update you on the coming statewide RLC convention and much more! Stay tuned. And please invite those you know with a passion for liberty.

Come be a part of the #1 liberty activist group in Southern California, the Los Angeles County Republican Liberty Caucus.

Meet the members and get inspired by their efforts that are making history locally and around the country. It’s time for libertarians, Constitutional conservatives, and liberty lovers of all stripes to celebrate our successes, then build on them.

It appears the Democratic Party has a Republican creating memes for their Facebook page. They have been posting a series of images in a hilarious attempt to attack the Republican presidential candidates. In their first try at Rand Paul, the Democrats posted this black and red image of Rand saying, “I’d shut down the Department of Education.” I’m sure Rand was wondering how to hire their graphic designer as the image has surpassed 5,000 shares, making it their most viral image of late. Many commenters seem baffled by this image. Others were enraged because they mistakenly believe shutting down the 35 year old DOE would end the public school system. These uninformed individuals don’t care to hear Paul’s arguments for local control of education and empowering parents through school choice. Don’t try to give them statistics about the decline of American education since the creation of the Deptartment.

As that first attempt backfired, the Democrats retreated to beat the drums of class warfare. They posted this image with an orphaned quote reading: “You can’t punish the rich.”
Alice Salles, an RLC member, left a comment giving the context of this statement. She wrote, “Here’s the full quote by the way. It’s really amazing.”

“What I’ve been saying in my speeches is ‘do you remember when they said they wanted to tax the yachts?’ They were going to tax these big boats that the rich people bought. Well, guess what? The rich people went to the Virgin Islands and bought their boats down there. But, you know who was hurt? The ship builders in Connecticut. You can’t punish rich people. You end up punishing the people who work for them, or you punish the people who they buy things from.”
– Rand Paul (September 2010) [VIDEO]

So, are the Democrats arguing that we should punish the rich? What does that look like? Are they admiting that taxation is punishment? We urge you to keep your attention on these wonderful memes as the comment section is a great place to do some great grassroots activism and help some Democrat learn about Liberty.You can do it with comments using basic logic. You can just fill in the missing part of the quotes they cherrypick. Or you can do as we’ve done and post images with slight modifications to their memes. This one provides a quote that far more telling about Rand Paul and his policy ideas.

This week, Sen. Rand Paul became the first U.S. Presidential Candidate to accept Bitcoin donations. The New York Times published an article entitled, “In Accepting Bitcoin, Rand Paul Raises Money and Questions”. The article argues “presidential fund-raising […] may have just become even more secretive”, suggesting that Bitcoin opens the doors for illegal contributions. The war of misinformation against Rand Paul has begun. Bitcoin is not untraceable and Rand Paul is trying to out perform the Fed in secrecy.

Money and information; if you can control these you can rule the masses. As a decentralized digital currency, Bitcoin liberates money from central control by any individual or group. As a public ledger of transactions, the Bitcoin network (the blockchain), holds a complete record of all transactions making it perfect for accountability in campaign finance. Bitcoin is transparent. This fact escapes many journalist and politicians who often prefer to cast Bitcoin beneath the shadow of the Silk Road and the Dark Web. While questioning Paul’s intentions the author also recorgnizes that Paul follows the FCC rules that limit Bitcoin contributions to $100.

Below is the email I wrote to the author addressing the false premise that bitcoin is “ultimately untraceable”:

Correction:
Bitcoin is perfectly traceable.

This is a common misunderstanding because of its murky origins. But every transaction on the Bitcoin network (Blockchain) is recorded on a public ledger viewable by anyone with eyes and an internet connection. Check out blockchain.info. You can check the balance and activity of any bitcoin address. For this reason Bitcoin is the perfect campaign finance currency.

Another omitted fact is that a Bitcoin donor must submit their name, address, and occupation before they are able to make a donation to Senator Paul.

Your article is based on a very false premise and common misunderstandings about this emergent technology. I hope you’ll acknowledge this mistake and make all necessary corrections.

I’ll let you all know about the reply… once I hear back.

My next and far more important letter will be to Assemblyman Matt Dababneh who has introduced a bill, AB1326 – Virtual Currency, to the California State Legistlature that would ammend the financial code to impose hefty fees and strenuous regulations on Bitcoin entrepreneurs. Please Tweet @MattDababneh and your CA State assemblyperson about your concerns against this troublesome legislation.

But there are no Pollyanna solutions for what happened (and what is bound to happen again) on the Southern border. Mass deportation and amnesty won’t work. Both require way too much government and would result in more unintended consequences.

There is a tradition for libertarian Republicans to resurrect that will solve the immigration crisis. Ronald Reagan, Milton Friedman, and others have highlighted this tradition.

It is nothing new that factions in the Republican Party attack Republican Liberty Caucus members. Being a libertarian in the Republican Party has never been an easy, welcoming task.

Libertarianism is a philosophy that some in the party hate with a passion. My beliefs of peace, love and freedom as well as my family’s origins in the Middle East have made me a target to certain racists in the Republican Party who will resort to anything to slander my name. These factions gave us the same amount of hate in 2014 when Reuters and The Blaze picked up on our amazing work and success in the Los Angeles County Republican Liberty Caucus.

It is clear that Republicans are split over stark differences on how to handle foreign affairs. As Republicans, we should embrace the free market and let our ideas compete with one another. Yet, there are those who shout “anti-Semite!” to whoever disagrees with their take on the Israeli government. In my case, the chosen phrase was, “Associates with Radical Anti-Semitism.” The hit piece (and I’m guessing the poor headline) against me was by an anonymous author (how convenient). There could not be a more intellectually dishonest and lazy argument than to call someone an inaccurate name while ignoring the entire topic at hand.

I guess I am making inroads with the philosophy of freedom when the fallacious and lazy attacks start to come in. Ron Paul was all too familiar with these types of attacks from wrongly being called an anti-Semite to a racist, none of which were even remotely true. The anonymous author didn’t restrain themselves to just covering my criticism of the Israeli government. They then forced pathetic connections to make the unfounded “association” of anti-Semitism. There is nothing radical or anti-Semitic about my statements, associations or beliefs. I have always denounced anti-Semitism and call on the anonymous author to withdraw his or her defamatory statements.

The hit piece is so silly that it attempts to use my YouTube favorites and posts I have clicked “like” on as a centerpiece for their argument rather than focusing primarily on my own words. None of the videos endorse anti-Semitism. Several are published by Jewish people. One video is in Hebrew, by a Jewish professor in Israel speaking out against torture. I highly recommend watching it. Another video is about the life story of a Jewish economist from Austria named Ludwig von Mises. Does this constitute associating with “radical anti-Semitism” to you? Or perhaps a screenshot of my YouTube favorites showing videos of meditation techniques, economics and workout exercises is somehow supposed to be an association “with radical anti-Semitism” to the anonymous author? The only radicalism and extremism present here are the authors false claims.

Pitiful hit pieces like this one are slanderous, deluding and should not be taken seriously by any rational individual. If this is what the author had to resort to after thoroughly stalking my social media pages for months, you know they are lacking any logical argument in the first place. I find it odd that some Americans are more offended at a critique of a government thousands of miles away than our own. Criticizing a country’s government policies does NOT mean you hate someone because of their religion. Talk about a gross logical fallacy.

To clarify, as a libertarian, I do not believe in racism, sexism, anti-Semitism or any form of collectivism. My entire philosophy is contradictory to racism and I deplore any form of hate, including anti-Semitism. I view and judge every human on an individual basis and racism, in any form, is a horrid form of collectivism. As Ron Paul famously said:

“Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals. Racists believe that all individuals who share superficial physical characteristics are alike: as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups. By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called ‘diversity’ actually perpetuate racism. Their obsession with racial group identity is inherently racist.

The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence, not skin color, gender, or ethnicity.

More importantly, in a free society every citizen gains a sense of himself as an individual, rather than developing a group or victim mentality. This leads to a sense of individual responsibility and personal pride, making skin color irrelevant. Rather than looking to government to correct our sins, we should understand that racism will endure until we stop thinking in terms of groups and begin thinking in terms of individual liberty.”

Liberty Republicans have sadly grown accustomed to vitriolic hate from fellow Republicans. Constant attacks over philosophical differences must end if we are to ever become a fighting force in this country again. There is only one way the Republican Party is going to make inroads, grow our ranks and have success with not just other Republicans, but more importantly outsiders. And that is to embrace the beliefs of peace, love, unity and respect. The Republican Liberty Caucus has accomplished this. Perhaps it is time for others in the party to try it as well.